NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18237, 22 November 1924, Page 11

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

WOMAN IN HISTORY. It can be said for Miss (or Mrs?) E. M. White's "Woman in World History" that it misses very little of the world, and not many of those pages of history in which woman is especially prominent. Tho book is a compilation rather than a study—the material out of which original work could "be struck rather than the original itself; but it is, of course, very important, to have the material right to begin with. This the author has achieved. There is not a chapter without it 3 table of references, hardly a-page without its footnotes, and not a-single extract, ancient or modern, that is not carefully acknowledged and identified. To snow the amount of ground covered ,it may bo mentioned that the bibliography at the end runs to eleven full pages, and that the authorities cited chapter by chapter range from Herodotus and beyond him to Havelock Eilis and Sir J. G. Frazer, from obscure Latin poets to popular presentrday novelists and wartime Blue-books. Miss White is especially concerned with woman s place in the religions of the world, a sphere in which the average person would not at first thought look for her —unless she happened to be a witch: but in this matter the author is right _and ( the average person wrong. Religion has been far more woman's life than it has been, man's, and it is by no'means true that it has nieant to her merely sentiment and ceremonial. The thread that connects the "wife of with Mrs General Booth is. not sanctity in the popular and sentimental sense, but p, busings-like nietv directing a passionate imagination. Compilation thouch it is. this book can he recommended to all students of the "Woman Question," to feminist® and anti-femin-ists. and t-o"those who like Burns merely "love the la-sses,' 0." (Irfri ion: He»bert Jenkins.)

THE NORTHERN MUSE. To most people, thanks to the Bums Societies, Scots poetry means Burns and little if anything else, and perhaps even amongst the- exiled Soots there is an equal ignorance of the treasures of the Northern Muse. Perhaps this would not be so if there were anthologies comparable with the many admirable collections of English verse which have appeared since the Golden Treasury. Anthologies there are, indeed, but who knows them P Mr John ■ Buchan has therefore supplied a real need .with his very comely volume. "The Northern Mu6e," which has; just been issued. In his introduction, which contains a (valuable historical criticism of Scots vernacular verse, Mr Buchan. explains that he has made his collection tp please himself, and when an anthologist -with taste and knowledge does this, he is sure to please everyone. He gives us nearly 250 pieces, covering the five, centuries between the Kingis Quhair and • to-day, with 80 pages of '.'commentary.'' consisting of notes historical, critical, and 'bibliographical. Th© book is divided into eighteen sections, the tverses being grouped according to subject—an. infinitely better arrangement than thei printing of the pieces in chronological order. In. his introduction Mr Buchan; deals Very severely with that mass of' Scots vernacular poetry in which the dialect is expected to supply the want of depth, feeling, and imagination, and he iseems to doubt whether anyone since the 16th century except! Burns has the great 1 qualities of the' early writers, - who wrote in the '• vernacular because it ; was natural for them to do so. Bat-althotighßtirts }s.the only modern figure worthy' of a ,place beside Dunbar, there is a surprisingly large number of writers of very taking verse in the vernacular, and, a great mass of noble poetry" written by men whose names , haive perished.- Ijifodern poets—Stevenson, Scott, '.'Hugh Hali-. burton," Violet Jacob-—have written fresh. and spontaneous poetry ,in the old-fashioned, dialect, but the note, of greatness, is rarely except in the, olden poems. No doubt the lovers of .Scots poetry will.; charge _ omissions against Mr JBucJiari's collection, but it cannot be . said that ; he has included anything that would be better, away. It is, indeed, a'very delightful anthologv that-he has siven' us. (London and Edinburgh: Nelson and Sons.)'. STELLA BENSON. ' It is difiicult to read a. new: book hy Miss Stella Benson without remembering all the' time that the title of one of her books is. "i Pose." To say or suggest that she is a poseur an»l nothing eise would be grossly unfair, but it would'hardly be more a .lteiary sense than to be unconscious of her many- tricks and pretenoe^w-mean, of wurse, conscious and-deliberate aim, tongiie-in-therch6ek . pretences. > The •mere name of this latest book. Pipers and a Dancer"- —th© vulgarians I who pipe, and she herself who weakly hut with secret mirth' conforms to ( thetune —is almost as provocative, as T. Pose, or as the . puns and piping cleverness which; she scatters through every .chapter. Th© heroine begins (first line, ana first page) by "stopping short and hearing with" horror the eqho.of .her own voice," and sh© goes through to the. end "obsessed by her Showman"—in plain English, by herself. iShe can say of a woman that she "sang in a small voice 'from a large bosom —a mountain deI livered of a mouse," of a puppy that "he- walked as though he had never worn' stays," and ask of a pony if it ' mustn't be embarrassing for a mare to have a mul© for a_ child. She _can | say something very brilliant about herl self—that is, her heroine, who is heri self, can —and when the words taKe I effect subtly withdraw them . . • _ • "But I ought to tell you—l've mad© that joke before." That is the very : pinnacle of egotism. But she can hit I off a character in ten-simple words; ahe can lay hold of people with fingers as delicate as Max Beerbohm's and. as ! strong almost as Joseph Conrad's; she ' can bring down the stars or the mountains and leave them for everybody to see in a five-lined paragraph; and she can say—and who else.can say so J clearly and well ?—-all that is passing I through a poseur's head between her first sip of coffee and her last surrepti- | tious gulp. There is .no particular advantage in having the piping and dancing done in China—unless, perhaps, that it gives- the bow a double string. Those who want the- objective g;et it—a subtle inland-Easfcobjeetive in the fewest possible words. Those who want the subjective—Miss Benson's subjective and no one else's—are as well served as if they were all the time in London or New York. (London: Maomillan and Co.) \ • -■/■notes; It is pleasaitt to have a new, cheap, and attractive Australian • edition . of William Caine's "Mendoaa and a Little Lady." Those who read itywheriii first appeared will y. appreciate . ewen-: more fully to-day its nnforoed gaiety-and cleverness, while -the' multitude' to it is still unknown have a. happy-night 1 ahead of-them-—i/, of course; tney have a taste for champagne as well as. beer. (Sydney:. Angus .and Robertson).

masters for aneh a lesson were there;, and many -a wet eye was seen—for Nelly was a'good subjept for -asermon and . the then Vicar of St. Martinwsg an-impressive preacher.''